My ride goes a little something like this…
Coast to Mittagong:
I left work early because I was being totally unproductive (leaving myself open here I know). I rang Eagle to let him know and within the hour he called back to say it was go time.
I met up with Eagle at the Oak where I heard the understatement of the weekend. It goes a little something like this:
Ace: “Hi Eagle, are you excited?”
Eagle: “Oh yeah, I suppose”
Rumour has it that he spent the previous night sleeping on his bike in full attire watching re-runs of Long Way Round on his i-phone???
We tootled off to Wisemans on the black top where we met up with Lotsa. We rode along River Rd, up to Cliftonville and then through some traffic to Penrith. Fortunately Lotsa knew a few back roads to Mittagong that kept the ride interesting.
We made it to the pub where we had a feed and a few refreshing ales while TB tirelessly loaded all the GPS’s and gave the riders brief before I hit the sack.
Day 1: Mittagong to Woodstock
I woke up a little dusty on day one but full of enthusiasm and ready to hit the trails for a long day in the saddle. My ever reliable riding partner Eagle and myself were teamed up with ol’ lion heart himself “The Wigster” so the 3 Amigos headed off into the early morning sun.
The trails were a terrific mix of open winding twins with some creek crossings and the odd technical bit to keep us on our toes.
Here is Wigster filling up the kettle in one of the creek crossings. They were all a little deeper than they looked from the bank but we all made it across without incident.
By far the best part of the day was a little off shoot that TB had snuck into the route. Only the really advanced navigators could find this one but it was technically challenging and had the most fantastic scenery up the top. Unfortunately the likes of Mick P, Lotsa, Crash and KR didn’t get to experience the track as they sailed past as we watched from the top.
Thankfully TB, PTW and Amy were doing a sensational job of riding ahead and marking all of the obstacles for us as they went. I’m not sure how TB knows all of these tracks backwards but to make changes on the fly and keep everyone out of harms way is no mean feat…Well done guys(and gal)!
Ummm…somehow my now advanced navigational skills let me down when I actually rode around this 10m long arrow pointing to a detour. I really just wanted the sticker from TB for completing the entire route…the photos above show the damage caused by a mini cyclone that recently hit the area.
The Amigos were having such a relaxing time that when we pulled up for another photo opportunity, we realised that we had taken 6 hours to complete less than half the leg! A bit further down the road, Crash caught up to us and advised that KR was back at the Hippy Camp – very convenient I reckon and the four of us decided to bypass Wyangla dam and head into Cowra for some fuel.
We made it to Woodstock were the beer and stories flowed on for a couple of hours. A really enjoyable day in all with some 500 odd klm travelled through some fantastic trails and without incident to our bodies or bikes.
To be continued…
:whistle:
